“Samsung’s phones and tablet run on the Android operating system, developed by Google,” Levine reports. “Before he died last year, Apple co-founder Jobs made a number of statements to his biographer about the company’s intellectual property, saying he was willing to go ‘thermonuclear’ to ‘destroy’ Google’s operating system.”

MacDailyNews Take: Yes, because Jobs said Android is a “stolen product.”

Levine reports, “In seeking to introduce Jobs’ statements in court, Samsung argued in a filing that the thermonuclear quote ‘speaks to Apple’s bias, improper motives and its lack of belief in its own claims in that they are a means to an end, namely the destruction of Android.’ However, Apple argued in a court filing that Jobs’ quotes are an inadmissible distraction, and asked that they be barred from trial. At a hearing in a San Jose, California federal court on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh said Jobs’ statements were not relevant.”

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6 Comments

Re MDN Take:
You are trying to speak common sense and factual information to the Fandroid crowd. That’s not commonly a successful tactic.

Anyone with a brain and eyes can tell that Google’s Fandroid, Samesung, et al. have lifted and aped the look and feel of the iOS and iPhone hardware. I would imagine that Google shit a 10 lb. brick when they saw the iPhone and ‘re-imagined’ the device similarly.

As to lawsuits, we can all name a number of civil as well as criminal cases where justice was NOT done, was not served and the results just flat wrong. O.J. Simpson searching for the ‘real killers’ of his ex on the Golf courses of Florida after the Judge Ito’s trial comes to mind.

Of course, justice is eventually served as karma is a bitch. Judge Ito is losing his court and courtroom in budget cuts.

Unfortunately the before and after really does not matter much legally. Just because Google saw the iPhone, realized it was much better and changed direction is not, in and of itself, illegal.

The legal crux of the matter is whether the Goolgle “after” implementation violates any of Apples design IP that is protected by law (patented, copyrighted, etc., etc.)

Everyone should remember, you CANNOT patent or copyright an IDEA. You can only protect certain, specific implementations of those ideas. Did Google improperly copy those protected implementations. Apple certainly thinks it has.

I don’t understand why Apple isn’t allowed to have a bias against a competitor, especially one who they believe stole their IP. That’s the whole idea. Even wanting to run that competitor into the ground is fine unless they do so by engaging in some prohibited activity.